Posted on: August 15, 2024, 02:13 am.
Last updated on: August 15, 2024, 07:09.
Las Vegas Boulevard was closed briefly Wednesday to allow the former entrance arch to the Mirage to travel down the street it had led to for 34 years, heading for the Neon Museum, 5 miles north.
The museum agreed to purchase the 30-foot-tall arch from the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the owner of the Hard Rock brand, which acquired the operating rights to The Mirage from MGM Resorts for $1.075 billion in 2021.
Also on the way to the museum are the 5.2-meter-high sculpture of Siegfried & Roy with one of their tigers and the 8.2-meter-long Mirage sign that decorated the volcano’s lagoon.
The Seminole Tribe is converting the groundbreaking Steve Wynn property into the second Hard Rock Las Vegas. When it is scheduled to open in 2027, the new casino resort’s standout feature will be a 660-foot-long, guitar-shaped hotel to be built on the site of the current volcano show – which was actually built on the site of the very first licensed casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Mirage Arch, with its hundreds of sparkling LED lights, has a reserved outdoor space in the museum’s prestigious Neon Boneyard.
It will be displayed alongside signs for the Stardust, Moulin Rouge, Riviera and other relics that were destroyed by developers who were more concerned with increasing shareholder profits than preserving Las Vegas’s rich cultural history.
Arch forward
The Mirage Arch is not finished with its journey yet, however. It will need to be relocated once the Neon Museum implements its plan to move from its current location to the Arts District, where it will have nearly triple the exhibition space by 2027.
In other outstanding Mirage matters, Hard Rock officials have asked that the property’s gaming license remain active during construction.
They applied to the Clark County Business Licensing Department on July 11, six days before they closed on the property for good, for a two-year exemption with the possibility of a two-year extension for an additional six months. (The conversion to the Hard Rock is expected to take three years.)
According to Clark County regulations, the gaming license of licensees who fail to meet the requirements for more than 30 consecutive days can be revoked unless they can provide a valid reason for doing so.
The Clark County Liquor and Gaming Licensing Board is expected to review the application at its Aug. 20 meeting.
